Very Basic Random Sampling
Both with and without replacement
Random Sampling is when you randomly pick items out of a bag and record which items you see.
You can ‘sample’ five playing cards from a standard deck and record which five cards you picked.
You can do this with or without replacement.
When you sample with replacement, you put each item back in the bag after you’ve recorded it. In this example, you draw each card from the deck, record it, and then put it back into the deck and shuffle it before drawing the next one.
When you sample without replacement, you do not put the cards back in the deck. When you draw five cards from the deck, you just end up with a standard poker hand of five cards.
Look at these two samples.
In this image, we see that the top row is a standard five-card hand. This is because we sampled without replacement.
In the bottom row, we see that the Ace of Hearts appears twice because it is possible to see the same card twice when you sample with replacement. You don’t always see repeat cards however, as you will see when you play with this example spreadsheet
I only bring sampling up now because:
It’s ubiquitous in game design (any game of chance or loot box system)
We’re going to need it for our next Excel Practical
Until then, have fun drawing cards!